Flying Padre

Flying Padre

A scene from Flying Padre
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Produced by Burton Benjamin
Written by Stanley Kubrick
Starring Fred Stadmueller
Narrated by Bob Hite
Music by Nathaniel Shilkret
Cinematography Stanley Kubrick
Edited by Isaac Kleinerman
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
Running time
 9 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Flying Padre is a 1951 short subject black-and-white documentary film. It is the second picture directed by Stanley Kubrick, after Day of the Fight. The film is nine minutes long.

Story

The subject of Flying Padre is a Catholic priest in rural New Mexico, Father Fred Stadtmuller. Because his 400-square mile parish is so large, he uses a Piper Cub airplane (named the "Spirit of St. Joseph") to travel from one isolated settlement to another. The film shows him providing spiritual guidance, giving sermons at funerals, and serving as an impromptu air ambulance by flying a sick child and his mother to hospital.

Production

After Kubrick sold his first short film, the self-financed Day of the Fight, to RKO in 1951 for $4000 (pocketing a $100 profit),[1] the company advanced the 23-year-old filmmaker money to make a documentary short for their Pathe Screenliner series. Flying Padre was the result.[2]

In an interview in 1969, Kubrick referred to Flying Padre as "silly".[1]

The film is narrated by CBS announcer Bob Hite.[3]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Joseph Gelmis "An Interview With Stanley Kubrick (1969), excerpted from The Film Director as Superstar New York: Doubleday, 1970.
  2. ↑ "Stanley Kubrick: The Master Filmmaker - Biography/Chronology
  3. ↑ Hite was an announcer and anchor for CBS from 1944-1979, during which time he was announcer for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Prior to joining CBS, Hite was at WXYZ, Detroit, where he narrated the old radio shows such as The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and The Shadow. IMDB Bob Hite (II)

External links